


self-same metal

by trapezoidscheme



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Trans Character, Trans Dee, abuse tw, alcohol tw, body issues?? kind of, dee/ waitress if you REALLY squint, macdennis if you squint, no incest shit okay please im begigng you, trans dennis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-06 00:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10320869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trapezoidscheme/pseuds/trapezoidscheme
Summary: Trans twins hanging out, being trans.The title is inspired by this post, which uses a quote from Shaekspeare's King Learqueensroad.tumblr.com/post/157987270225/its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-x-shakespeare





	1. Deandra Reynolds Does't Need (That Much) Approval

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me on tumblr! I'm @mcpoylehateblog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dennis hates Dee's name, but she doesn't care. That much.  
> Then they get drunk and Dennis rants a little bit

“Deandra?” Dennis scoffs, waving an accusing finger in Deandra’s face like he knows what the hell he’s talking about. With a name like Dennis, Deandra isn't so sure. “That’s so stupid! You couldn’t have picked a better name than fucking Deandra?”

Deandra takes a step back, her hands on her hips and her chin held high.

 “I happen to like that name,” she says, and Dennis barks out a laugh.

“Well I’m not calling you that, so you better figure out a nickname, before I pick one myself…” he pauses for a moment and gives her a sly grin “… Deandruff.”

Deandra screams with fury before pouncing on her brother, clawing at his face and pulling at his hair, until she suddenly remembers that picking fights isn’t… feminine. She jumps off of Dennis like he's burned her, smooths out her hair, and storms out with her fists clenched, leaving him to writhe on the floor in pain.

~~~

“I like ‘Dee,’ by the way,” she says, bumping his shoulder with hers. Dennis tears his eyes away from the girl he was ogling across the room and turns to Dee with an incredulous look.

“What the hell are you talking about?”  Dee sighs. Was his memory really that bad?

“I’m still changing my name to Deandra--” (Dennis groans at this, but Dee squares her shoulders and pushes on) “—but you can call me Dee. Since you seem to hate ‘Deandra’ so much.” Dennis tries to hide his grin, but Dee can sense that he’s pleased she adjusted to him. Narcissistic asshole.

“I do still hate ‘Deandra,’ Dee, you’re completely correct, and I think it’s abhorrent that you would ever want to have a name like that associated with you. But I can deal with ‘Dee.’” Dee smiles, pulls a ring off her finger and puts it on a different one. Dennis goes back to ogling the girl after a quick complaint that Dee threw him off his game. As if he ever had game anyway.

~~~

Dee has a bruise on her cheek where their dad punched her and Dennis is holding ice to her face and crying and it’s honestly just a normal night in the Reynolds household.

“Let’s get drunk.” Dee says abruptly, and Dennis gives her a watery smile as he holds up a bottle of vodka.

“Way ahead of you, sis.”

They pass the bottle back and forth, bump fists in lieu of clinking glasses when Dennis shakily proposes a toast.

“To being disappointments?” Dee laughs.

“To being disappointments!” There’s a dull thud when their knuckles collide and Dennis grins at her.

~~

Dee’s pleasantly buzzed and she’s laughing as Dennis paces the floor and rants about a Max or a Mac or something. Her face is still throbbing and the ice has melted into the carpet but she’ll be fine. She takes another sip from the bottle and lies back down, tries to do a breathing exercise but can’t quite seem to get it right. Dennis stops pacing, fixes her with a look.

“Have you been paying attention to me at all?” His hands are in his hair and his curls poke through his fingers like a stubborn army of soldiers with scoliosis. Dee giggles and tells him no, she’s not listening, but she’s sure it would be quite interesting if she cared, and he gives a short yell in her direction before resuming his pacing and his ranting.

When Dee tunes back in, he’s muttering mostly to himself now, but she draws her knees up to her chest and listens.

“Everyone knows Mac is gay, it’s so disgustingly obvious how GAY he is, even Charlie knows how gay he is and Charlie doesn’t know anything!” Dee wants to get offended on Charlie’s behalf but, okay, it’s kind of true.

“--and I’ve seen the way he looks at the football players, Dee, I know he’ll never want ME with my…” Dennis pauses, looking at himself in the mirror like he’s seeing himself for the first time.

Dee murmurs something she hopes conveys reassurance and opens her arms. Dennis makes a noise that sounds like a cross between a dying cat and a deflating balloon and sits down next to Dee, lets her put her arms around him and tell him about the girl in her math class who smiles politely at Dee but lets her gaze linger on the girls with smaller hands and smaller noses.

She doesn’t realize they’re both crying until Dennis is protesting and winding out of her grip and she didn’t realize she was digging her nails into his shirt until he politely asks her to get the fuck off of him before I cut all of your individual fingers off and feed them to you, Deandruff. She then grabs him by the collar and warns him to never call her that again unless he wants to get a matching bruise, Cocksucker. He spreads his hands wide and grins at her and she pushes him away with a scoff and they’re normal again.


	2. Sweet Dee Hates Her Mom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is set in the middle of The Gang Goes Jihad, right after Barbara goes into the bar and feeds Dee's sandwich to her dog. Watching season two through the lense of Trans Twins is quite painful, 10/10 would recommend.  
> I'm a trans man, so I don't really Know the trans woman experience so please let me know if I said something wrong!!

“I hate her so godamn much, Dennis, I hate her, I hate her!” Dee’s screaming never fails to give Dennis a headache and he rubs his temples, contemplating all of the other things he could be doing right now. Dee has all but barricaded herself in the back office of the bar and Charlie wants a wrench out of there for some reason, and so it fell upon Dennis to retrieve the wrench and assess the damage. The only damage, so far, seems to be Dee’s makeup, which is smeared all over her cheeks in the most unattractive way possible. The wrench is nowhere to be found.

“Alright Dee,” Dennis settles into the chair behind the desk, hands held out in front of him in a placating gesture. “What the hell is wrong?” This, it seems, is what Dee was waiting for, and she goes off like a shot. She paces up and down in front of the desk as she recounts every second of her encounter with their mother, hands flying (flapping, Dennis notes with a snicker) in every direction, as if she’s trying to reach back into the moment and dole out a well-deserved slap. Her hair flies wild around her face, frames her words in a disheveled yellow-white halo. Dennis picks up a book halfway through her story and buries his nose in it, feigning boredom, but Dee knows he’s still listening because the book is one of her romance novels that he likes to trash, and he doesn’t turn a single page while she’s talking.

Dee begins to explain that she likes being an adult because she has her own apartment, away from her mother, and she gets to spend her day around people who make her feel good. Okay, so maybe “good” is a strong word, but they only insult her in spurts. Not all the time. Not every day. And anyway, she doesn’t give a shit what the gang thinks. Her own mother? That’s a different story. Even when she first transitioned, Barbara’s approval was always what she was seeking. That’s why she burned her scalp with the hair dye she was allergic to, that’s why she caked on all that makeup, that’s why she had blisters on her feet every day (“Really? I thought it was because you have giant feet, bird.” “Shut up, Dennis!”).

So when that bitch just shows up at the bar, calls her fat, and then proceeds to sweep out of there with her stupid little dog in tow without a single word about her only daughter’s injuries, Dee feels that she has the right to get a little upset.

“What did she say when you said I ran you over with my car?” Dennis finally drops the charade and puts the book down, raises an eyebrow and fixes her with that cocky look she hates.

Dee clenches her fists, feels the anger bubbling to the surface. If she stresses any more, all of her stitches are going to pop, and then Dennis will have wounded her twice. “Is that what you’re taking away from all this, Dennis? That it’s all about you?”

Dennis stands up, throws his arms in the air like he has the right to be frustrated right now. Like he’s the one who’s always been treated like shit. Like he’s not the one their mother clearly, unabashedly favored. “I just want to know what she said, you bitch!”

“You know what she said, asshole?” Dee rounds on Dennis, gets behind the desk and pushes him backward like they’re kids again. He rubs at his shoulder, glaring at her while she speaks. “She told me not to blame my failures on my brother! Because I’m such a piece of shit that--” She interrupts herself with a sob, covers her face with her hands. Crying in front of Dennis is the worst, but she seems to do it a lot more than she’d like to admit.

“Hey, hey, hey…” Dennis softens his voice, guides Dee down to a sitting position on the floor, puts a hesitant arm around her. She leans into him and lets the rest of the world fall away, tries to keep her breathing even between fits of sobbing. Watching Dee cry like this never fails to remind Dennis of how much he hates their mother.

It’s a little while later, after Dennis has already muttered “you’re getting my shirt wet, you bitch, this is my nice shirt” at least a dozen times, when she finally pulls away from him, rubbing her eyes.

“You are such a _girl_ , Jesus Christ,” Dennis says, standing up and brushing himself off. “Why do women have so many feelings? Just bottle them up like the rest of us, Deandra, for Christ’s sake.”

Dee knows this is the best she’s ever going to get and she fully embraces it, smiles wide at Dennis even as he scoffs at her and sweeps out of the office, brotherly duties fulfilled. She sits on the floor for a long time after that and just breathes. Revenge is in order, and there’s one other person she knows hates her mother as much as she does. She exits the office with gusto, jingles her car keys enticingly at the very person she was hoping to see.

“Dad! How do you feel about messing with my mother?” Frank’s face breaks into a grin and he hops off the bar stool to hobble outside after her.


End file.
